summertime

Sandwich

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by Catherine Newman
First sentence: “Picture this: a shorelined peninsula jutting into the Atlantic Ocean.”
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Content: There is a lot of swearing, including many f-bombs. It’s in the adult fiction section of the bookstore.

I usually don’t take my boss’s recommendations when it comes to books; she and I just have too different of reading preferences. She likes deeply literary things (and mysteries) and I prefer character- and plot-driven genre fiction. So, when she told me I really needed to read this one, I kind of brushed it off.

And then I kept seeing it everywhere, from people whose tastes are more similar to mine, and whose opinions I respect. And so I picked up for myself for Christmas.

I hate to say it, but my boss was right: I needed to read this one. It’s the story of one week in summer, a family vacation – mom, dad, two adult children, one partner, grandparents – all coming together. It’s about nothing, really, just snippets of their vacation. But it’s also about everything. It’s about growing older as a woman, watching your kids get older and become adults themselves, about redefining what it means to be a woman, a person who was once needed and now no longer is, really. It made me laugh – Newman’s observations about menopause, abou the barely contained anger and frustration, about the conflicting emotions (rage, gratitude, regret, joy) you constantly feel as a woman, are spot on – and it made me sob.

It’s a slight thing, this novel, but it packs a punch. And I am glad I finally got around to it.

When Sea Becomes Sky

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by Gillian McDunn
First sentence: “Some summers are the funnest and some summers are the longest but last summer was perfectly ordinary until the day we found the hand.”
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Content: It’s got short chapters and some illustrations. It’s in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore. I read this book for the Cybils, and this reflects my opinion and not that of the whole panel.

Bex and Davey have always been a duo, biking together or rowing around the marshes of their island. And this summer starts like every other one, except it hasn’t rained in 313 days and the water levels are lowering. And with the lower water levels, a hand appears in the marshes. Not a dead hand (ew), but a metal one. And with developers wanting to build a bridge to the island from the mainland, Bex and Davey are afraid that would mean the end of the statue they found before they even had a chance to figure out who made it.

Thus begins an adventure as Bex and Davey try to figure out what the statue is, and who the artist was that created it. And the answers they find will surprise everyone.

I like McDunn’s books. They’re quiet and sweet and portray everyday challenges in a very accessible light. This one is no exception, though it packs a bit more punch than I’ve come to expect from her. I do think the developer plotline was a bit underused, but I liked how the artist’s plot was resolved, and how it all came full circle in the end. I also like the environmental angle with the drought. It was well done and quite enjoyable.

The First Magnificent Summer

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by R. L. Toalson
First sentence: “Period (noun): a length or segment of time.”
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Review copy pilfered from the ARC shelves at work.
Content: There is mention of swearing, and maybe a couple of mild ones. There is talk of a girl getting her period, and of their father having an affair. It’s in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore, but this one really skews to the older end.

Victoria – please don’t call me Tori anymore – and her two siblings are off to Ohio to see their father, whom they haven’t seen since he left their mom two years ago, for a whole month. Victoria is – rightly – worried about it: her dad has a new family, a new wife, and two new children, whom she calls The Replacements. She hopes it will go well, but is anxious she won’t.

And – no surprise – it doesn’t. Her dad is emotionally abusive to her, calling her fat and making her do chores that her older brother gets out of simply by being male. In fact, when she vents into a journal about her experiences – camping in a tent while The Replacements sleep in a trailer, getting her period and her father forcing her to swim anyway, her stepmother complaining that Victoria doesn’t dry the dishes correctly, or even the fact that her dad won’t use the name she prefers – her father reads her journal without her permission then proceeds to yell and slap her for it. Victoria is supremely happy to go home.

The cover and title suggest something happy, something about discovery (well, Victoria discovers she doesn’t need her father), but this was a dark, terrible book. Victoria’s dad was – to put it mildly – a piece of work. I didn’t quite get why the book needed to be set in the 90s (there was a mention of the Waco Branch Davidians raid happening a couple months before, which is a really odd way of setting a book in a time. Are kids going to know that reference?), except to maybe make it so Victoria couldn’t call home? (Or to give her dad something else to yell at her about.) It was very much about shattered dreams and shattered illusions and picking oneself up after that. Which, sure, I appreciate that.

But honestly? I really disliked this one.

102 Days of Lying About Lauren

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by Maura Jortner
First sentence: “Every morning, the skeleton-rooster lets out a cock-a-doodle-do that could shake a person to their very core.”
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Content: There’s abandonment and some parental emotional abuse. It’s in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore, but I’d be wary about handing it to the younger end of that age group.

For 102 days, Mouse has been living in the attic of the Haunted House ride at the theme park. For 102 days she has been pretending with her “borrowed” shirt to be an employee, sweeping up guests’ messes. For 102 days she has been left alone after her mother left her in the park. She doesn’t know if her mother is going to come back, but just in case, she doesn’t want to leave. For 102 days, Mouse has been just fine. But then a strange girl comes to the park and starts asking questions about Lauren, which Mouse doesn’t want to think about. And hasn’t – not really – for 102 days.

Oh, this one is heartbreaking. Abandonment – Mouse’s mother just hit the end of her rope, but you don’t leave your kid at an amusement park! And parental abuse – Mouse’s friend Tanner is the son of the park boss, and he’s a piece of work. It takes a tornado and his son almost dying to bring him around (sorry, that’s a bit of a spoiler). And yet, there’s a bit of Boxcar Children in this one: a 12-year-old girl figuring out how to “survive” on her own, making things work for her. It’s sad, but it’s also engaging, especially since the book takes place over one day, that 102nd day when Mouse’s life changes again.

I’m not sure it’s for really young kids, but it’s a good book for someone who wants a bit of adventure and doesn’t mind the abandonment part.

My Not-So-Great French Escape

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by Cliff Burke
First sentence: “‘Smile!’ my mom urged.”
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Content: There are some moments of bullying and a neglectful father. It’s in the Middle-Grade section of the bookstore.

Ryan has been drifting apart from his best friend, Wilder, for a while. At first, it was because they went to different schools, but when Wilder’s mom got Ryan a scholarship to the elite private school Wilder went to, Ryan thought they would be friends again. But, it wasn’t to be: Ryan found himself, and the fact that he and his mom don’t have a lot of money, the butt of jokes. This summer, Wilder is off to a month-long farming camp in France, and his mom has made it so Ryan can come along. Ryan hopes that this will rekindle their friendship.

Spoiler: Ryan is wrong. When he gets to the farm, Wilder ditches him for some French kids and Ryan is stuck with some other international kids. He’s upset and sad and misses home at first, but with the encouragement of the director, he throws himself into gardening and milking goats, and making new friends. It turns out to be a good summer after all.

This was super fun, because who wouldn’t want to spend a month in France in the summer? Burke does a good job of giving us a feel for a French farm, and Ryan is sympathetic as he learns to make new friends. Wilder never is redeemed – he’s a twat right up to the end – but the book has a good message about letting go of old friends and finding new ones. Plus goats and bees.

I really liked it, in the end.

Audiobook: Now Is Not the Time to Panic

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by Kevin Wilson
Read by Ginnifer Goodwin
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Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is some talk of violence and sex, and some swearing (maybe a couple of f-bombs? I can’t remember). It’s in the fiction section of the bookstore.

It’s the summer of 1996 in Coalfield, Tennessee, and there isn’t a whole lot to do, especially if you were 16. Frankie is resigned to another boring summer until she meets Zeke. And the two of them create a poster – Frankie comes up with the words and Zeke the art – that, once they start putting it up all over town, creates a panic. Two people end up dying, and there is talk of the poster coming from a Satanic cult. Frankie and Zeke promise to never tell, but 21 years later, Frankie is contacted by a reporter who has discovered that she is behind the Coalfield Craze of 1996. Now, it seems, the story needs to be told.

On the one hand, the book is an interesting musing on the purpose and reach of art: did the poster mean what everyone thought it meant? What responsibility do Frankie and Zeke have for others’ reactions to their art? There was a bit of coming-of-age, as Frankie had a first love, and her dreams were crushed, and realized that maybe everything isn’t perfect. But – I had issues with her as a 16-year-old. She felt… young. Obsessive. I hated the use of “weird” – she was “weird”, she felt “weird”, and she had a “weird” brain. It was a lot. I liked the narrator; she was sweet and read the book well, but in the end, I wasn’t sure I really got what Wilson was getting at.

10 Things I Hate About Pinky

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by Sandhya Menon
First sentence: “The dead body was an especially nice touch.”
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Review copy provided by the publisher.
Release date: July 21, 2020
Content: There’s some kissing and mild swearing. It will be in the YA section of the bookstore.

Pinky Kumar is the different one in her family. With her colored hair, eyebrow ring, impulsive nature, series of not-great boyfriends, and devotion to causes (and creating trouble), her parents — her mother, especially — are at their wits end. So, after being accused (by her mother) of burning a barn down while on summer vacation, Pinky blurts out that she has a boyfriend her parents would approve of. She just needs to find that boyfriend, stat.

Samir Jha has everything planned out: he’s going to DC for the summer to do a high-stakes internship as part of his goal to getting into Harvard. However, when that suddenly falls through, he’s pretty aimless. Then he gets a text from Pinky — who he knows, but not well — out of the blue: come pretend to be her boyfriend for the summer, and she will make sure he gets an internship with her mother, a high profile lawyer. Against his better judgement, Samir accepts. It should be easy, except for one catch: he can’t actually stand Pinky’s impulsiveness. The feeling’s mutual: Pinky thinks Samir is boring. How are they going to survive the summer?

Oh this was cute. Sure, it’s a formulaic rom-com, but that’s kind of what one wants out of a romance story. And it has a couple of additional layers: Pinky’s conflicted relationship with her mom (due to a lack of communication on both sides) and Pinky getting involved in a local dispute with a developer trying to develop a habitat at their summer home. But those just added to the overall cuteness and just happy-making of the book. Menon really does have a gift for making light, fun, sweet romances and I am more than happy to read every one of them.

All Summer Long

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by Hope Larson
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Release date: May 1, 2018
Content: There’s a little bit of romance, and just some themes of growing up in general. It will be in the middle grade graphic novel section of the bookstore, but the sweet spot for this one is 6-7th graders, I think.

It’s the summer after 7th grade, and Bina’s not looking forward to it. Her best friend, Austin, is off to soccer camp for a month, and Bina’s afraid that summer will be boring without him. They’ve always spent the summer together, making their own fun, but they seem to be… growing up. And things aren’t the same.

Though, eventually Bina finds her own things to do: she makes friends with Austin’s older sister, Charlie, gets some babysitting gigs, and practices her guitar. It’s not the way it was with Austin, but it doesn’t suck.

The underlying conflict in the book is Austin and Bina’s friendship: they’ve been friends forever, but Austin’s been getting some grief from other boys (toxic masculinity is the worst!) for being friends with a girl, and so he attempts to push Bina away — which is part of the reason he’s been acting weird toward her. Larson treats all this with kindness and humor, and puts across a message that it’s okay to be friends with whomever you want to be with. Period. It’s wonderful.

And Larson also captures what it’s like to be young and faced with a long summer of doing… nothing. I like that the parents are concerned and responsible, but not hovering (they also change the Netflix password, so Bina can’t just watch TV all summer… that’s not a bad idea!) and Bina has some freedom to go out and find her own fun, but within reason.

It’s really a delightful graphic novel.

Summerlost

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summerlostby Allie Condie
First sentence: “Our new house had a blue door.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There’s a lot of talk of death, but nothing too sad. It’ll be in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

Cedar Lee didn’t expect much from her summer visiting her grandparents in Iron Creek. Her dad and brother died in a freak accident the hear before, and the rest of the family has been just barely managing. Then Cedar’s mother finds a house in Iron Creek and purchases it as a summer home, not something they can afford, but perhaps something that will help with healing.

Cedar’s not happy about it; she misses her dad and her brother, and doesn’t really want to move on. But between the new house, a summer taking care of her other brother, Miles, and her new friend, Leo, maybe she can heal.

This is a really difficult book to summarize, mostly because not much happens. It’s an incredibly introspective story, driven by characters — most notably the friendship (and just that, nothing more) between Leo and Cedar — rather than by plot. But it’s a lovely look at friendship and healing and enjoying the simpler things of life. There’s also is a love of Shakespeare and acting that weaves through the story which helps tie the whole story together.

An interesting aside: this is a very Mormon book. Oh, Condie does a lot to disguise it, but it’s really the Shakespeare festival in Utah (to which I’ve never been). And it — at least to a Mormon — just feels Mormon. But, that said, it’s something I noticed because I was tuned into the clues. And it’s not something I minded at all.

In fact, I thoroughly enjoyed this one.

Honor Girl

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by Maggie Thrash
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Content: There’s about a half-dozen f-bombs scattered throughout the book. It’s in the teen graphic novel section of the bookstore.

It’s the summer of 2000, and Maggie is 15. She’s been going to the same summer camp in Kentucky — Camp Bellflower — since she was little, the same camp her mother and grandmother both went to. There was a lot of tradition in the camp, including that of Honor Girl: the one senior camper that was supposed to embody all the Tradition of the camp.

There are very few books, I think, that truly capture what a 15-year-old girl is really like, in all her angst and insecurity. And Thrash’s graphic memoir hits the nail on the head. It’s spot-on. From the drama between her and another girl over who will get their shooting D.E. (a mark of excellence) first to the rumors that fly around the camp about anyone and everyone. But, for Maggie, her summer is wrapped up in a crush she has on one of the counselors, Erin. Does she like Maggie back? Is Maggie even supposed to like one of the counselors? What does it all mean?

The answer is, ultimately and honestly, that she doesn’t know. There is no grand Coming Out moment. There are some moments when I wanted to smack those running the camp, when they discriminated against Maggie for exploring who she is. But, mostly, it was just one slice of a moment in time, when a girl fell in love and didn’t really know what to do about that. And that was something I found I could relate to.

I’m glad Thrash decided that her story needed to be told.